Drips and Spurts

The sap is flowing again, after having stopped for a cold spell. It's easy to see why vacuum pumps for sap collecting have taken over the bucket method. One comes in drips, the other in spurts. Hopefully by this weekend the new sugar house will be operational and we will be boiling on site.

Bricking the Firebox

One of the last big jobs of installing the maple syrup evaporator is laying the bricks in the firebox. All weekend Don cut, laid and cemented in the bricks, so that hot fires can be lit beneath the evaporator pan to turn the sap into syrup.

Fired Up

Today Don put the final section on the chimney pipe for the wood stove in the sugar house. Then, he lit the stove for the first time! Once he gets the sugar house warm enough, he can lay the fire brick in the evaporator.

Like Icing on the Cake

Matt, Pat, and Co. got working on the cupola for the top of the sugar house. It's starting to look like the real deal. Now that the trees are all tapped and the sap is flowing, it's all getting done in the nick of time.